Rob Lownie
1K posts
@RobLownie
Deputy Editor, News @unherd | Pitches etc. to [email protected]
Why the New Right hates the King, by Rob Lownie (@roblownie) For J’Accuse, a popular Substack on the Right, the Crown ‘has been explicitly part of the centre-left establishment in Britain for decades’. This has become entrenched under ‘Woke King Chuck’, whose coronation was ‘an orgy of diversity and other woke crap’. Where Left-wing Republic campaigners consider the King an avatar of imperial plunder and oppression, the anti-monarchists of the online Right see him as a hapless facilitator of postcolonial surrender. Read more below ⬇️ buff.ly/F12OKMI
Support for the British monarchy is falling. The problem for the Windsors is that this is happening on the political Right as well as the Left. My essay for UnHerd on the new face of republicanism 👇
We need our best players on the pitch. There is no doubt that Andy Burnham is one of them. The Makerfield by-election will be tough. Votes will need to be earned. Andy is the best chance of winning and that should override factional advantage or propping up one person.
For decades, Westminster has overseen the managed decline of towns like mine. We have talked big, then acted small, stuck in a politics of incrementalism that cannot meet the moment. We have lost the trust of those our party was built to serve. It is my unwavering belief that nothing short of urgent, radical, courageous reform will make a difference. That must start with a change in leadership. Today, I am putting the people I represent and the country I love first and will be resigning as MP for Makerfield. I am standing aside so that Andy Burnham can return to his home, fight to re-enter Parliament, and if elected, drive the change our country is crying out for. This has not been an easy decision. This is my family’s home, where only a few weeks ago, doctors and nurses at Wigan Infirmary saved our newborn son’s life. But we all must make choices and in recent days I found myself with a difficult one: defend the status quo or step forward and act. I have made my choice. I am in politics because politics is how you change lives for the better. My party has one last chance to do that: deliver for the people and places I represent, drive economic growth, secure our borders, reform our state and politics, and change a status quo that is not working. That is the fight. I believe Andy is the one to lead it.
Pendle: England’s broken bellwether, by Cosmo Adair (@cosiadair) This was once a placidly apolitical bellwether seat, a testament to the two-party system. But today, its fractured political landscape houses everyone from middle-class Starmerites and Restore-curious farmhands to long-established British Asians and more recent migrants — to say nothing of Nelson’s beleaguered white working class. Read more below ⬇️ buff.ly/Kbgd47R
Clavicular: the digital Dorian Gray, by Cosmo Adair (@cosiadair) Every man has some picture that is the image of his secret life — his dream. People are often damned by theirs. Clavicular (née Braden Eric Peters, 17 December 2005) was haunted by an image of his own perfected face. It would take years to construct it, to finish his 'ascension', but by the time it was finished — when his biacromial width, his chin-to-philtrum ratio, the distance between his pupils were perfectly harmonious — his face was no less perishable. But for now, at least, it was beautiful. But 'behind every exquisite thing that existed,' wrote Oscar Wilde, 'there was something tragic'. This, then, is the Tragedy of Clavicular. Read more below ⬇️ buff.ly/nwKbTWY
Wow. I’ve just received a threatening letter from Ben Delo’s solicitors Addleshaw Goddard. They are claiming, among other things, that it is unlawful to publish information about Delo’s conviction for an anti-money laundering offence in the US. They also say I cannot publish their letter. An extract is below. Is Delo going to get his solicitors to threaten everyone who mentions his conviction? How is this not a SLAPP? @sra_solicitors @DanNeidle
